Touches of Red
by Rhianwen
Summary: In which the doctor reflects sappily on his browneyed girl. DoctorElli ultrasappy fluff.


Written in Red

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Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, and I think the people who do might actually not look at me funny for this one! XD

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With as much as I love giving you gifts, Elli-girl, you might easily be the most spoilt girl in the world if I wasn't so entirely hopeless in a dress shop.

I suppose it doesn't always have to be a dress, and occasionally I do branch out into jewellery. But I think you enjoy dressing up and hearing the compliments that come with a little extra time in front of the mirror. So, as long as your sense of duty convinces you to put every bit of money you earn into Stu's education and Ellen's comfort while you remake the same dress every year because it's the easiest style to sew yourself and the material's cheap, I'll continue to be the object of curious feminine gazes.

Just now, there are three of them, all watching me like hawks, or Shakespeare's _wyrd sisters_, as I stumble helplessly through racks of lace and frills and buttons and ribbons. I don't know what dress shop could possibly need three shopgirls on at the same time, in the middle of the day, unless it's to surround and devour unsuspecting males who wander in here unaware.

This is too dangerous a venture for a man to try alone; one look at those bloodred talons on the oldest of the harpies and your measurements, complexion, and _personal style_ have flown right out of my head. I know you'd be giggling madly at my elbow if you were here right now, sweetheart, and I wish you could have joined me. But I know it was impossible, because _someone_ had to stay with the Clinic in case all of Mineral Town simultaneously developed pneumonia or something.

Despite the thought of how you'd laugh to see me terrified of a trio of shopgirls doing nothing more than watching me browse, I've just made up my mind to see what the bookstore across the street has instead, when something catches my eye that seems made for you.

But I don't know.

It isn't because the narrow straps and wide rounded neckline would leave both arms and throat bare and only a shade darker than the soft white material, and the ruffle at the bottom of the full, lacy skirt would barely brush your knees, or that I've only dreamed of seeing you in something so revealing. I've thought of you for a long time as _the woman I love_, and this is as good a way as any to hint at interest I've hardly begun to express.

But the wide ribbon belt, knotted into a pert little bow at one side, is a deep, vibrant red.

Would you wear red?

It's only a colour, but colour can be a powerful symbol. _Red_ is a colour of blood, but also of joy; of anger, desire, love, and a thousand more things that you've been to me almost since we met.

I know I could never get you into a dress entirely of red, a blouse or a skirt, or even a hat. But in such small touches…

I don't think I've ever seen you in red, aside from the time little May braided those little crimson wildflowers into your hair, and I suspect it has something to do with what I overheard your grandmother tell you laughingly on the subject:

_It isn't just any girl can wear a lot of red; it belongs to truly beautiful girls – like Popuri – and girls who truly don't care_.

I love Ellen dearly, of course, and her gentle, twinkling smiles and wisdom have gotten us both through a lot more than I would like to admit, but I can't help but wish that, on this occasion, she hadn't spoken.

No one with such big, soft brown eyes that could bring a spring thaw in the middle of winter, a sweet sparkling smile that could reduce a stone to a puddle and does the same to me regularly, should be ignorant of the possibility that she is _truly beautiful_.

Even if it's only to me, Elli, you are. The most beautiful woman I've ever seen. And as long as I'm telling you things through a silly, frivolous gift of a pretty frock, I might as well keep going and tell you that, too.

Mind made up, I turn and call to the nearest of the shopgirls, who looks immediately away and pretends that she hasn't been all but stalking me since the moment I walked in the door.

"Excuse me, miss? Do you have this dress in another size? It's for a friend of mine; I think it'll look wonderful on her…"

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End Notes: Okay, I don't know. It's cutesy fluff with no redeeming value, but it made me smile. :) See?


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